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  • How to append to an XML response an error attribute using Ruby on Rails 3?

    - by user502052
    I am trying to implement REST APIs, so in my RoR3 application I have XML responses. Before to pass to a consumer the XML, I wuold like to check if there are errors and, if so, send back a response with error messages. I read "Active Record Validations and Callbacks" guides on the RoR website, but it seems not work in my case. I extract from the database a resource doing @response = User.find_by_id(1) and I wuold like, if possible, to add error to it. Seeing some examples I have seen how to report errors in an XML file format.xml { render :xml => @response.errors } but how I can add append new errors to the @response? Maybe something like this: errors.add(:password, "is invalid")

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  • XML Processing on iPhone: What is the best option?

    - by gonso
    Hello Im building a new version of an iPhone application and Im wondering if I should review how my app communicates with the server. My iPhone client sends and receives XML over HTTP requests. To send the information I use ASIHTTPRequest framework. I "manually" build the XML request by appending strings. To parse the response Im using a NSXMLParser. My question is if I have better options to A) Create an XML string from a memory object. B) Create a memory object from the XML string. Is there anything like JAXB to marshal XML into object? Thanks Gonso

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  • How to Send and Receive XML request to another ASP classic page?

    - by SH
    I want to send an XML to another Asp Classic page on the same domain. i am using following code for sending XMl url = "http://localhost/api/xmlget.asp" information = "ColtTaylor100" Set xmlhttp = server.Createobject("MSXML2.ServerXMLHTTP") xmlhttp.Open "POST", url, false xmlhttp.setRequestHeader "Content-Type", "text/xml" xmlhttp.send information And i have setup xmlget.asp with following code to receive XML: Dim xmlDoc Dim userName set xmlDoc=Server.CreateObject("Microsoft.XMLDOM") xmlDoc.async="false" xmlDoc.load(Request) I run the code but do not see any reflection, how would i know? And if it is successful I want to know the xml and i dont know exact property to load from xmlDoc!

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  • Is there an existing tool for jsonp like fetching of xml in jquery?

    - by BearCode
    Hi, For a web service I'm developing I would like my embedded code (on the client's site) to fetch an xml file from my sever script which resides on my domain. As this is a cross-domain request I figured to use jsonp as it seems the de facto standard for such apis. However, for my application it would be easier for me to use xml instead of json. Now, I could of course convert my xml to json on the server and then back again to xml in the client's site javascript, but that seems unnecessarily cumbersome. What I really need is and xmlp solution, xml with padding. I tired googling but couldn't find a jquery plug-in that does that. Anyone knows a simple solution?

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  • AS3: How to get all XML-Nodes with a special attribute? (With sourch)

    - by insnet
    Hi there The Challenge: i d like to collect all nodes with the attribute "id". The Problem: The code doenst work with nested nodes. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><contentmap><fonts id="fonts"> fonts/Arial.swf swf/library_main.swf private function onXMLLoader(event : Event) : void { _xml = _loader.getXML(event.target.url.url); var searchTerms : XMLList = _xml.*.(hasOwnProperty('@id')); if (searchTerms.length() 0 ) { _NodeArray = new Array(); _parseNode(searchTerms); } private function _parseNode(xml : XMLList) : void { for each (var node: XML in xml) { if(!node.hasSimpleContent()) { _parseNode(node.children()); } else { var nodeObject : Object = new Object(); nodeObject['value'] = node.text(); for each(var a:XML in node.@*) { var name : String = String(a.name()); nodeObject[name] = a.toXMLString(); } _NodeArray.push(nodeObject); } } }

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  • Is there a GUI that I can use to create XML documents based on my schema?

    - by David Conlisk
    Hi all, I want to create a simple graphical user interface to allow non-technical users to create an XML file without having to manually edit the XML source. Ideally I'd like a drag and drop interface, but failing that, anything really. The contents of the XML file are similar to an encoded flow chart of a binary tree, so maybe something like Visio, with a save as xml option? Here's a quick sample of the XML output that is required: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <steps> <step id="1" type="prompt"> <prompt> Welcome. </prompt> <next>1.1</next> </step> <step id="1.1" type="question"> <prompt> Do you have what you need? </prompt> <yes>1.2</yes> <no>1.1.1</no> </step> ... </steps> Are there any existing tools out there that you can recommend for this purpose? Ideally open-source or with a free personal license, but I'm interested in hearing about all options. Thanks, David

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  • What is the performance penalty of XML data type in SQL Server when compared to NVARCHAR(MAX)?

    - by Piotr Owsiak
    I have a DB that is going to keep log entries. One of the columns in the log table contains serialized (to XML) objects and a guy on my team proposed to go with XML data type rather than NVARCHAR(MAX). This table will have logs kept "forever" (archiving some very old entries may be considered in the future). I'm a little worried about the CPU overhead, but I'm even more worried that DB can grow faster (FoxyBOA from the referenced question got 70% bigger DB when using XML). I have read this question http://stackoverflow.com/questions/514827/microsoft-sql-server-2005-2008-xml-vs-text-varchar-data-type and it gave me some ideas but I am particulairly interrested in clarification on whether the DB size increases or decreases. Can you please share your insight/experiences in that matter. BTW. I don't currently have any need to depend on XML features within SQL Server (there's nearly zero advantage to me in the specific case). Ocasionally log entries will be extracted, but I prefer to handle the XML using .NET (either by writing a small client or using a function defined in a .NET assembly).

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  • parse xml with elementtree, custom sorting

    - by microspace
    I want to parse xml file in utf-8 and sort it by some field. Soring is made by custom alphabet (s1 from sourcecode). History of question is here: sorting of list containing utf-8 charachters. I've found how to sort xml here. Sorting work correctly, the problem is with elementtree, I must admit that it doesn't work on python3 Here is source code: #!/usr/bin/env python # -*- coding: utf-8 -*- #import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET # Python 2.5 import elementtree.ElementTree as ET s1='aáàAâÂbBcCçÇdDeéEfFgGgGhHiIîÎíiiIjJkKlLmMnNóoOöÖpPqQrRsSsStTuUûúÛüÜvVwWxXyYzZ' s2='11111122334455666aabbccddeeeeeeffgghhiijjkklllllmmnnooppqqrrsssssttuuvvwwxxyy' trans = str.maketrans(s1, s2) def unikey(seq): return seq[0].translate(trans) tree = ET.parse("tosort.xml") container = tree.find("entries") data = [] for elem in container: keyd = elem.findtext("k") data.append((keyd, elem)) print (data) data.sort(key=unikey) print (data) container[:] = [item[-1] for item in data] tree.write("sorted.xml", encoding="utf-8") Here are instructions to import elementtree module. When I import module this way :import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET, I get a message: Traceback (most recent call last): File "pcs.py", line 19, in <module> container[:] = [item[-1] for item in data] File "/usr/lib/python3.1/xml/etree/ElementTree.py", line 210, in __setitem__ assert iselement(element) AssertionError When I use this method to import: import elementtree.ElementTree as ET, I get this message: Traceback (most recent call last): File "pcs.py", line 4, in <module> import elementtree.ElementTree as ET File "/usr/local/lib/python3.1/dist-packages/elementtree/ElementTree.py", line 794, in <module> _escape = re.compile(eval(r'u"[&<>\"\u0080-\uffff]+"')) File "<string>", line 1 u"[&<>\"\u0080-\uffff]+" ^ SyntaxError: invalid syntax I use Python 3.1.3 (r313:86834, Nov 28 2010, 11:28:10). In python2.6 elementtree work without a problem. Content of tosort.xml: <xdxf> <entries> <ar><k>zaaaa</k>definition1</ar> <ar><k>saaaa</k>definition2</ar> ... ... </entries> </xdxf>

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  • XSLT question, how to transform xml when I have xslt file stored, but object in mem?

    - by JL
    I have a function that takes 2 parameters : 1 = XML file, 2 = XSLT file, then performs a transformation and returns the resulting HTML. Here is the function: /// <summary> /// Will apply an XSLT style to any XML file and return the rendered HTML. /// </summary> /// <param name="xmlFileName"> /// The file name of the XML document. /// </param> /// <param name="xslFileName"> /// The file name of the XSL document. /// </param> /// <returns> /// The rendered HTML. /// </returns> public string TransformXml(string xmlFileName, string xslFileName) { var xtr = new XmlTextReader(xmlFileName) { WhitespaceHandling = WhitespaceHandling.None }; var xd = new XmlDocument(); xd.Load(xtr); var xslt = new System.Xml.Xsl.XslCompiledTransform(); xslt.Load(xslFileName); var stm = new MemoryStream(); xslt.Transform(xd, null, stm); stm.Position = 1; var sr = new StreamReader(stm); xtr.Close(); return sr.ReadToEnd(); } I want to change the function not to accept a file name, but rather a strongly typed object de-serialized (now in the form of a variable). Is this possible? So keep the xslt coming from a file, but the xml input should be a the serialized xml of the object I pass, and I want to do this without file system IO.

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  • Add namespace to XmlTextWriter using C#

    - by xml
    Hi, I have an serializeable class that his root is serizlized to XmlRootAttribute with namespace. I want to add additional namespace to this root elemt, how can i do it? adding XmlAttribute failed to compile. The code: [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlRootAttribute("Root", Namespace = "http://www.w3.org/2003/05/soap-envelope", IsNullable = false)] public class MyClass { [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlElement("...")] public ClassA A; [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlElement("..")] public ClassB b; } After the serialization i'm getting something like that: <Root xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2003/05/soap-envelope"> <ClassA/> <ClassB/> </Envelope> I want to add to the rood additioanl namespace, e.g. i want the xml to be: <Root xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" **xmlns:tns="anotherXml"** xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2003/05/soap-envelope"> <ClassA/> <ClassB/> </Envelope> Any idea?

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  • How to parse XML to flex Data Grid contents.

    - by Jeeva
    My xml file which is in a webserver is show below. <root> <userdetails> <username>raja</username> <status>offline</status> </userdetails> <userdetails> <username>Test</username> <status>online</status> </userdetails> </root> How can i parse this to flex data grid contents. I tried with below coding < ?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"? < mx:Application xmlns:mx="http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml" layout="absolute" creationComplete="initApp()" < mx:HTTPService id="userList" result="handleData(event)" resultFormat="object" url="http://apps.facebook.com/ajparkin/user_list.xml" / <mx:Script> <![CDATA[ import mx.collections.ArrayCollection; import mx.rpc.events.ResultEvent; import mx.controls.Alert; public function initApp():void { userList.send(); } [Bindable] var userdetailsArray:ArrayCollection; private function handleData(evt:ResultEvent):void { this.userdetailsArray= evt.result.userdetails; } ]]> </mx:Script> <mx:DataGrid dataProvider="{userdetailsArray}"> <mx:columns> <mx:DataGridColumn dataField="username" headerText="User Name"/> <mx:DataGridColumn dataField="status" headerText="Status" /> </mx:columns> </mx:DataGrid> </mx:Application> I'm getting only the field names not the data.

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  • Is there an application that can help someone create an XML document based on the Relax NG schema?

    - by meowsqueak
    I've spent a bit of time creating a Relax NG schema for use within our team to validate XML documents we use for exchanging information. The schema is not complicated, but it is reasonably large. I am wondering if there exists a tool that can read in such a Relax NG schema and assist a user in creating a corresponding instance document, using the schema as a template. Perhaps an application with a GUI that creates fields and drop-down selections for each part of the document? For example, the tool might create an outline XML document and prompt the user to select multiples of certain elements, fill in each field, perhaps with permitted values read directly from the schema. It might also show the user via visual feedback when their document is 'complete', or highlight validation problems as they come up. I could anticipate writing a custom GUI tool to create such an XML document, but I'd really like changes to the schema to be automatically reflected by the GUI - and I really wonder if this hasn't already been done. I know some editors can automatically validate an XML document against a schema as it's being written, but I would really like to get my users one step away from the XML so they don't have to worry about the details of the XML syntax.

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  • Parse large XML file w/ script or use BioPython API ?

    - by jeremy04
    Hey guys this is my first question on here. I'm trying to make a local copy of the UniprotKB in SQL. The UniprotKB is 2.1GB, and it comes in XML and a special text format used by SwissProt Here are my options: 1) Use a SAX parser (XML) - I chose Ruby, and Nokogiri. I started writing the parser, but my initial reaction: how would I map the XML schema to the SAX parser? 2) BioPython - I already have BioSQL/Biopython installed, which literally created my SQL schema for me, and I was able to successfully insert one SwissProt/Uniprot txt file into the database. I'm running it right now (crosses fingers) on the entire 2.1gb. Here is the code I'm running: from Bio import SeqIO from BioSQL import BioSeqDatabase from Bio import SwissProt server = BioSeqDatabase.open_database(driver = "MySQLdb", user = "root", passwd = "", host="localhost", db = "bioseqdb") db = server["uniprot"] iterator = SeqIO.parse(open("/path/to/uniprot_sprot.dat", "r"), "swiss") db.load(iterator) server.commit() Edit: it's now crashing because the transactions are getting locked (since the tables are Innodb) Error Number: 1205 Lock wait timeout exceeded; try restarting transaction. I'm using MySQL version: 5.1.43 Should I switch my database to Postgrelsql ?

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  • Why is IE8 on XP not properly reading from XML using JQuery?

    - by dking
    Given this XML in data.xml <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <data> <bar>100</bar> </data> I want to display the content from the "bar" element using the following code in test.html <html> <head> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.3.2/jquery.min.js"></script> </head> <body> <script type="text/javascript"> $.get('data.xml', function(xml) { var foo = $(xml).find('bar').text(); document.write("<span>foo: [" + foo + "]</span>"); }); </script> </body> </html> The output in webkit based browsers: foo: [100] The output in IE8 on XP: foo: [] Why do webkit browsers read the element's content correctly while IE8 interprets it as an empty string?

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  • What's so bad about building XML with string concatenation?

    - by wsanville
    In the thread What’s your favorite “programmer ignorance” pet peeve?, the following answer appears, with a large amount of upvotes: Programmers who build XML using string concatenation. My question is, why is building XML via string concatenation (such as a StringBuilder in C#) bad? I've done this several times in the past, as it's sometimes the quickest way for me to get from point A to point B when to comes to the data structures/objects I'm working with. So far, I have come up with a few reasons why this isn't the greatest approach, but is there something I'm overlooking? Why should this be avoided? Probably the biggest reason I can think of is you need to escape your strings manually, and most programmers will forget this. It will work great for them when they test it, but then "randomly" their apps will fail when someone throws an & symbol in their input somewhere. Ok, I'll buy this, but it's really easy to prevent the problem (SecurityElement.Escape to name one). When I do this, I usually omit the XML declaration (i.e. <?xml version="1.0"?>). Is this harmful? Performance penalties? If you stick with proper string concatenation (i.e. StringBuilder), is this anything to be concerned about? Presumably, a class like XmlWriter will also need to do a bit of string manipulation... There are more elegant ways of generating XML, such as using XmlSerializer to automatically serialize/deserialize your classes. Ok sure, I agree. C# has a ton of useful classes for this, but sometimes I don't want to make a class for something really quick, like writing out a log file or something. Is this just me being lazy? If I am doing something "real" this is my preferred approach for dealing w/ XML.

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  • Ruby - Nokogiri - Parsing XML from memory and putting all same name node values into an array.

    - by r3nrut
    I have an XML I'm trying to parse from memory and get the status of each of my heart beat tests using Nokogiri. Here is the solution I have... xml = <a:HBeat> <a:ElapsedTime>3 ms</a:ElapsedTime> <a:Name>Service 1</a:Name> <a:Status>true</a:Status> </a:HBeat> <a:HBeat> <a:ElapsedTime>4 ms</a:ElapsedTime> <a:Name>Service 2</a:Name> <a:Status>true</a:Status> </a:HBeat> <a:HBeat> I have tried using both css and xpath to pull back the value for each Status and put it into an array. Code is below: doc = Nokogiri::XML.parse(xml) #service_state = doc.css("a:HBeat, a:Status", 'a' => 'http://schemas.datacontract.org/2004/07/OpenAPI.Entity').map {|node| node.children.text} service_state = doc.xpath("//*[@a:Status]", 'a' => 'http://schemas.datacontract.org/2004/07/OpenAPI.Entity').map(&:text) Both will return service_state = []. Any thoughts or recommendations? Also, consider that I have almost identical xml for another test and I used the following snippet of code which does exactly what I wanted but for some reason isn't working with the xml that contains namespaces. service_state = doc.css("HBeat Status").map(&:text) Thanks!

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  • Change XML node element value in PHP and save file.

    - by Hannes
    <testimonials> <testimonial id="4c050652f0c3e"> <nimi>John</nimi> <email>[email protected]</email> <text>Some text</text> <active>1</active> </testimonial> <testimonial id="4c05085e1cd4f"> <name>ats</name> <email>[email protected]</email> <text>Great site!</text> <active>0</akctive> </testimonial> </testimonials> I have this XML strcuture and i need to find a testimonial with specific id and change its value and save file. I have a PHP script deleting specific testimonial according its ID: <?php $xmlFile = file_get_contents('test.xml'); $xml = new SimpleXMLElement($xmlFile); $kust_id = $_GET["id"]; foreach($xml->testimonial as $story) { if($story['id'] == $kust_id) { $dom=dom_import_simplexml($story); $dom->parentNode->removeChild($dom); $xml->asXML('test.xml'); header("Location: newfile.php"); } } ?>

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  • Scala XML API: Why allow NodeSeq as attribute values?

    - by Synesso
    It seems attribute values are of type Seq[Node]. scala> <a b="1"/>.attribute("b") res11: Option[Seq[scala.xml.Node]] = Some(1) This means you can assign XML as an attribute value. scala> <a b={<z><x/></z>}/>.attribute("b") res16: Option[Seq[scala.xml.Node]] = Some(<z><x></x></z>) scala> <a b={<z><x/></z>}/>.attribute("b").map(_ \ "x") res17: Option[scala.xml.NodeSeq] = Some(<x></x>) scala> new xml.PrettyPrinter(120, 2).format(<a b={<z><x/></z>}/>) res19: String = <a b="<z><x></x></z>"></a> This seems funky to me. I've never seen XML as attribute values in the real world. Why is it allowed? Why is an attribute value simply not of type String?

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  • Parsing an XML string containing "&#x20;" (which must be preserved)

    - by Zoodor
    I have code that is passed a string containing XML. This XML may contain one or more instances of &#x20; (an entity reference for the blank space character). I have a requirement that these references should not be resolved (i.e. they should not be replaced with an actual space character). Is there any way for me to achieve this? Basically, given a string containing the XML: <pattern value="[A-Z0-9&#x20;]" /> I do not want it to be converted to: <pattern value="[A-Z0-9 ]" /> (What I am actually trying to achieve is to simply take an XML string and write it to a "pretty-printed" file. This is having the side-effect of resolving occurrences of &#x20; in the string to a single space character, which need to be preserved. The reason for this requirement is that the written XML document must conform to an externally-defined specification.) I have tried creating a sub-class of XmlTextReader to read from the XML string and overriding the ResolveEntity() method, but this isn't called. I have also tried assigning a custom XmlResolver.

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  • jquery XML, i need .html() not .text() but not working?

    - by Xtian
    I need var long to be exported as html and not text. I know I have .text() but when I use .html() it will not work. Also if I take the .text() out when declaring the variable and it will not work in IE? The reason for this is, in the XML certain words will have html tags like or and I need those to be recognized. I thought I solved it when I took out .text() but then i looked at IE and I got nothing. $(document).ready(function(){ $.ajax({ type: "GET", url: "xml/sites.xml", dataType: "xml", success: function(xml) { $(xml).find('site').each(function(){ var id = $(this).attr('id'); var title = $(this).find('title').text(); var class =$(this).find('class').text(); $('<div class="'+class+'" id="link_'+id+'"></div>').html('<h2>'+title+'</h2>').appendTo('#page-wrap'); $(this).find('desc').each(function(){ var long = $(this).find('long'); var url = $(this).find('url').text(); $('<div class="long"></div>').html(long).appendTo('#link_'+id); $('<a href="http://'+url+'"</a>').html(url).appendTo('#link_'+id); }); }); } }); });// JavaScript Document

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  • Ignoring a xml Tag in the middle of the file in Regex (with non capturing group ?)

    - by schmirrwurst
    I have an xml with an embeded tag, and I would like to capture everthing but the FType Tags... in python regex. <xml> <EType> <E></E> <F></F> <FType><E1></E1><E2></E2></FType> <FType><E1></E1><E2></E2></FType> <FType><E1></E1><E2></E2></FType> <G></G> </EType> </xml> I tried : (?P<xml>.*(?=<FType>.*<FType>).*) But it give me everything ;-( I Expect : <xml> <EType> <E></E> <F></F> <G></G> </EType> </xml>

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  • Can I force JAXB not to convert " into &quot;, for example, when marshalling to XML?

    - by Elliot
    I have an Object that is being marshalled to XML using JAXB. One element contains a String that includes quotes ("). The resulting XML has &quot; where the " existed. Even though this is normally preferred, I need my output to match a legacy system. How do I force JAXB to NOT convert the HTML entities? -- Thank you for the replies. However, I never see the handler escape() called. Can you take a look and see what I'm doing wrong? Thanks! package org.dc.model; import java.io.IOException; import java.io.Writer; import javax.xml.bind.JAXBContext; import javax.xml.bind.JAXBException; import javax.xml.bind.Marshaller; import org.dc.generated.Shiporder; import com.sun.xml.internal.bind.marshaller.CharacterEscapeHandler; public class PleaseWork { public void prettyPlease() throws JAXBException { Shiporder shipOrder = new Shiporder(); shipOrder.setOrderid("Order's ID"); shipOrder.setOrderperson("The woman said, \"How ya doin & stuff?\""); JAXBContext context = JAXBContext.newInstance("org.dc.generated"); Marshaller marshaller = context.createMarshaller(); marshaller.setProperty(Marshaller.JAXB_FORMATTED_OUTPUT, Boolean.TRUE); marshaller.setProperty(CharacterEscapeHandler.class.getName(), new CharacterEscapeHandler() { @Override public void escape(char[] ch, int start, int length, boolean isAttVal, Writer out) throws IOException { out.write("Called escape for characters = " + ch.toString()); } }); marshaller.marshal(shipOrder, System.out); } public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception { new PleaseWork().prettyPlease(); } } -- The output is this: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?> <shiporder orderid="Order's ID"> <orderperson>The woman said, &quot;How ya doin &amp; stuff?&quot;</orderperson> </shiporder> and as you can see, the callback is never displayed. (Once I get the callback being called, I'll worry about having it actually do what I want.) --

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  • How can a code editor effectively hint at code nesting level - without using indentation?

    - by pgfearo
    I've written an XML text editor that provides 2 view options for the same XML text, one indented (virtually), the other left-justified. The motivation for the left-justified view is to help users 'see' the whitespace characters they're using for indentation of plain-text or XPath code without interference from indentation that is an automated side-effect of the XML context. I want to provide visual clues (in the non-editable part of the editor) for the left-justified mode that will help the user, but without getting too elaborate. I tried just using connecting lines, but that seemed too busy. The best I've come up with so far is shown in a mocked up screenshot of the editor below, but I'm seeking better/simpler alternatives (that don't require too much code). [Edit] Taking the heatmap idea (from: @jimp) I get this and 3 alternatives - labelled a, b and c: The following section describes the accepted answer as a proposal, bringing together ideas from a number of other answers and comments. As this question is now community wiki, please feel free to update this. NestView The name for this idea which provides a visual method to improve the readability of nested code without using indentation. Contour Lines The name for the differently shaded lines within the NestView The image above shows the NestView used to help visualise an XML snippet. Though XML is used for this illustration, any other code syntax that uses nesting could have been used for this illustration. An Overview: The contour lines are shaded (as in a heatmap) to convey nesting level The contour lines are angled to show when a nesting level is being either opened or closed. A contour line links the start of a nesting level to the corresponding end. The combined width of contour lines give a visual impression of nesting level, in addition to the heatmap. The width of the NestView may be manually resizable, but should not change as the code changes. Contour lines can either be compressed or truncated to keep acheive this. Blank lines are sometimes used code to break up text into more digestable chunks. Such lines could trigger special behaviour in the NestView. For example the heatmap could be reset or a background color contour line used, or both. One or more contour lines associated with the currently selected code can be highlighted. The contour line associated with the selected code level would be emphasized the most, but other contour lines could also 'light up' in addition to help highlight the containing nested group Different behaviors (such as code folding or code selection) can be associated with clicking/double-clicking on a Contour Line. Different parts of a contour line (leading, middle or trailing edge) may have different dynamic behaviors associated. Tooltips can be shown on a mouse hover event over a contour line The NestView is updated continously as the code is edited. Where nesting is not well-balanced assumptions can be made where the nesting level should end, but the associated temporary contour lines must be highlighted in some way as a warning. Drag and drop behaviors of Contour Lines can be supported. Behaviour may vary according to the part of the contour line being dragged. Features commonly found in the left margin such as line numbering and colour highlighting for errors and change state could overlay the NestView. Additional Functionality The proposal addresses a range of additional issues - many are outside the scope of the original question, but a useful side-effect. Visually linking the start and end of a nested region The contour lines connect the start and end of each nested level Highlighting the context of the currently selected line As code is selected, the associated nest-level in the NestView can be highlighted Differentiating between code regions at the same nesting level In the case of XML different hues could be used for different namespaces. Programming languages (such as c#) support named regions that could be used in a similar way. Dividing areas within a nesting area into different visual blocks Extra lines are often inserted into code to aid readability. Such empty lines could be used to reset the saturation level of the NestView's contour lines. Multi-Column Code View Code without indentation makes the use of a multi-column view more effective because word-wrap or horizontal scrolling is less likely to be required. In this view, once code has reach the bottom of one column, it flows into the next one: Usage beyond merely providing a visual aid As proposed in the overview, the NestView could provide a range of editing and selection features which would be broadly in line with what is expected from a TreeView control. The key difference is that a typical TreeView node has 2 parts: an expander and the node icon. A NestView contour line can have as many as 3 parts: an opener (sloping), a connector (vertical) and a close (sloping). On Indentation The NestView presented alongside non-indented code complements, but is unlikely to replace, the conventional indented code view. It's likely that any solutions adopting a NestView, will provide a method to switch seamlessly between indented and non-indented code views without affecting any of the code text itself - including whitespace characters. One technique for the indented view would be 'Virtual Formatting' - where a dynamic left-margin is used in lieu of tab or space characters. The same nesting-level data used to dynamically render the NestView could also used for the more conventional-looking indented view. Printing Indentation will be important for the readability of printed code. Here, the absence of tab/space characters and a dynamic left-margin means that the text can wrap at the right-margin and still maintain the integrity of the indented view. Line numbers can be used as visual markers that indicate where code is word-wrapped and also the exact position of indentation: Screen Real-Estate: Flat Vs Indented Addressing the question of whether the NestView uses up valuable screen real-estate: Contour lines work well with a width the same as the code editor's character width. A NestView width of 12 character widths can therefore accommodate 12 levels of nesting before contour lines are truncated/compressed. If an indented view uses 3 character-widths for each nesting level then space is saved until nesting reaches 4 levels of nesting, after this nesting level the flat view has a space-saving advantage that increases with each nesting level. Note: A minimum indentation of 4 character widths is often recommended for code, however XML often manages with less. Also, Virtual Formatting permits less indentation to be used because there's no risk of alignment issues A comparison of the 2 views is shown below: Based on the above, its probably fair to conclude that view style choice will be based on factors other than screen real-estate. The one exception is where screen space is at a premium, for example on a Netbook/Tablet or when multiple code windows are open. In these cases, the resizable NestView would seem to be a clear winner. Use Cases Examples of real-world examples where NestView may be a useful option: Where screen real-estate is at a premium a. On devices such as tablets, notepads and smartphones b. When showing code on websites c. When multiple code windows need to be visible on the desktop simultaneously Where consistent whitespace indentation of text within code is a priority For reviewing deeply nested code. For example where sub-languages (e.g. Linq in C# or XPath in XSLT) might cause high levels of nesting. Accessibility Resizing and color options must be provided to aid those with visual impairments, and also to suit environmental conditions and personal preferences: Compatability of edited code with other systems A solution incorporating a NestView option should ideally be capable of stripping leading tab and space characters (identified as only having a formatting role) from imported code. Then, once stripped, the code could be rendered neatly in both the left-justified and indented views without change. For many users relying on systems such as merging and diff tools that are not whitespace-aware this will be a major concern (if not a complete show-stopper). Other Works: Visualisation of Overlapping Markup Published research by Wendell Piez, dated from 2004, addresses the issue of the visualisation of overlapping markup, specifically LMNL. This includes SVG graphics with significant similarities to the NestView proposal, as such, they are acknowledged here. The visual differences are clear in the images (below), the key functional distinction is that NestView is intended only for well-nested XML or code, whereas Wendell Piez's graphics are designed to represent overlapped nesting. The graphics above were reproduced - with kind permission - from http://www.piez.org Sources: Towards Hermenutic Markup Half-steps toward LMNL

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